Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05TAIPEI3182
2005-07-29 00:48:00
CONFIDENTIAL
American Institute Taiwan, Taipei
Cable title:  

GROWING TAIWAN IDENTITY AFFECTS DOMESTIC POLITICS

Tags:  PGOV PREL TW 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 TAIPEI 003182 

SIPDIS

WASHINGTON PASS AIT/W

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/29/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL TW
SUBJECT: GROWING TAIWAN IDENTITY AFFECTS DOMESTIC POLITICS
AND CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS

REF: TAIPEI 2118

Classified By: AIT Director Douglas H. Paal, Reason 1.4 b

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 TAIPEI 003182

SIPDIS

WASHINGTON PASS AIT/W

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/29/2015
TAGS: PGOV PREL TW
SUBJECT: GROWING TAIWAN IDENTITY AFFECTS DOMESTIC POLITICS
AND CROSS-STRAIT RELATIONS

REF: TAIPEI 2118

Classified By: AIT Director Douglas H. Paal, Reason 1.4 b


1. (C) Summary. The growing "Taiwanese" identity has
important implications for cross-Strait relations and for the
future of Taiwan's political system. Over the past fifteen
years, the number of people identifying themselves as
&Taiwanese8 has nearly tripled to around 45 percent, while
those who consider themselves "Chinese" has plummeted to
around 6 percent. This emerging Taiwanese identity has
affected domestic politics, notably enabling the Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) to rally support as the &Taiwanese
party8 and elect Chen Shui-bian as its first President in
2000, and re-elect him in 2004 with a much higher vote. The
growing Taiwanese identity has not, however, translated into
greater support for independence; on the contrary, support
for the status quo has remained consistently high. While the
people of Taiwan increasingly recognize they are different
from the people of Mainland China and articulate this by
proclaiming they are "Taiwanese," this identity does not
trump more practical considerations, including quality of
life issues, Taiwan's increasingly close economic ties with
China, and the threat of a cross-strait war. End Summary.

Identity Transformed
--------------


2. (C) The shift in identity among the people of Taiwan over
the past fifteen years has created an identity increasingly
separate and distinct from Mainland China. A series of
Chengchih University polls over the past thirteen years shows
that the proportion of people in Taiwan who identify
themselves as &taiwanren8, or Taiwanese, rose steadily from
17 percent in 1992 to over 44 percent in 2004, mirroring in
reverse the decline in those who consider themselves
"zhongguoren," or Chinese (26 to 6 percent). (Comment: Since
the term "zhongguoren" for "Chinese" stresses more directly
identity with the country of China it is likely to receive a
stronger negative reaction in Taiwan. It is likely that a
question about Chinese identity using the alternate term for
Chinese, "zhonghuaren," would have elicited a more positive
response since that term stresses more cultural identity.
End comment.)



3. (C) The proportion considering themselves both Taiwanese
and Chinese has remained nearly constant at around 45
percent. These findings were corroborated by a TVBS poll in
September 2004 that found 45 percent of respondents
considered themselves Taiwanese compared to 41 percent both
Chinese and Taiwanese and 9 percent as Chinese. This
identity shift has been reflected in the Taiwan political
system. DPP President Chen Shui-bian won just over 50
percent of the vote in 2004, a substantial increase over the
30 percent he received in the 2000 presidential election.
Dark Green Professor Chen Yi-shen of the Academia Sinica told
AIT that this increase was a product of the growing
proportion of Taiwan people developing a Taiwanese identity
and, in turn, identifying with the DPP.

Interaction, Education, Hostility Fuel Changing Identity
-------------- --------------


4. (C) While the evolving Taiwanese identity is in part a
natural product of the island's century-long separation from
Mainland China, other forces have been at work encouraging
this identity shift. First, Taiwan's democratization itself
has been one of the drivers behind the growing Taiwanese
identity. The lifting of martial law in 1987, according to
Academia Sinica's pro-Green Prof. Hsu Yung-Ming, gave the
people of Taiwan freedom to think and speak, and allowed the
newly created DPP leeway to promote its notion of a unique
Taiwanese identity. Prof. Chen Yi-Shen told AIT that the
people of Taiwan are aware of the sharp contrast between
Taiwan's democratic political system and Mainland China's
autocratic government. In Taiwan, he explained, &democracy
and the nation-state have become connected,8 and the people
of Taiwan see stark differences between the systems of Taiwan
and Mainland China and increasingly differentiate themselves
from China. The growing contact and interaction between
Taiwan and Mainland China has reinforced this sense of
difference and encouraged the people of Taiwan to develop
their own separate identity. Once Taiwan people were able
to travel to China after Martial law was lifted, Hsu
continued, they realized how differently China and Taiwan had
developed )- economically, culturally, and even everyday
mannerisms and customs -- to the extent that many people in
Taiwan now hold very negative views of Mainland Chinese,
often viewing them as backwards, crude, and ill-mannered. In
turn, people in Taiwan increasingly identify themselves as
"Taiwanese" in part to separate themselves from Mainland
Chinese. National Taiwan University's pro-Blue Prof. Lin
Huo-Wang argued that as long as Mainland China remains an
autocratic state, Taiwan identity will continue to develop.


5. (C) Second, after the DPP came to power in 2000,
Taiwan-centered education began to replace the China-centered
education of the Kuomintang era. The prohibition on speaking
Taiwanese dialect in schools, for example, was reversed and
elementary school students were required to study a &native
language8 an hour each week. Public opinion polling experts
have told AIT that their survey cross tabulations indicate
younger people view Mainland China significantly more
negatively than do older people. TVBS Poll Chief Wang
Yeh-ding, for example, pulled out an April 2005 poll that
showed a stable 19-20 percent of all age groups viewed Lien
Chan's trip to Mainland China as a "sell-out," with the
exception of the 20-29 year age bracket in which 34 percent
held this view.


6. (C) A third reason the people of Taiwan increasingly
identify with Taiwan as distinct from Mainland China has been
Beijing's hostile actions towards Taiwan. The PRC,s
heavy-handed attempts in 1996 and 2000 to influence Taiwan's
presidential elections with missiles and threats, according
to Prof. Hsu, shocked and angered the people of Taiwan,
&turning them away from China.8 The March 2005
Anti-Secession Law is only the most recent example of this
harsh treatment of Taiwan by Beijing. The resulting
resentment has, in turn, encouraged the people of Taiwan to
differentiate Taiwan from Mainland China and to see
themselves as Taiwanese rather than Chinese.

Identity and Ethnicity
--------------


7. (C) Geographically defined Taiwan identity relates
directly to "ethnicity," as defined by "provincial origin"
(shengji). The mass migration of Chinese from Fujian and
Guangdong provinces -- Hoklos (or Fujianese) and Hakkas --
beginning in the seventeenth century overwhelmed the
aborigines (yuanzhumin) of Taiwan, who had come to the island
several thousand years earlier from Southeast Asia.
Generally called "Taiwanese" or "locals" (bendiren),the
migrants speak Taiwanese dialect (Taiyu or Minnanhua from
southern Fujian) and constitute 84 percent of the island's
population. The "Mainlanders" (waishengren) who accompanied
the Nationalists and Chiang Kai-Shek to Taiwan in 1949, and
their descendants, constitute 14 percent.


8. (C) The DPP rose to power by playing up this
identity-ethnicity linkage and emphasizing the difference
between Taiwanese and Mainlanders, a distinction that remains
central to political discussion today. The linkage between
identity and ethnicity, however, is blurring, as more and
more Mainlanders, particularly second and third generations,
lacking direct Mainland China experience, identify themselves
as "Taiwanese" or "Taiwanese-Chinese." With this change,
Prof. Hsu argued, ethnocentric identity is in the process of
breaking down, making ethnic-based national identity largely
a tool for political mobilization. The DPP 's Tseng
Wen-Sheng stressed that the connection between ethnicity and
identity in politics will continue to decline as the younger
generation comes into political power. While
first-generation Mainlanders may still consider themselves
more Chinese than Taiwanese, Tseng said, second-plus
generation Mainlanders born and raised on the island
increasingly consider themselves Taiwanese. Identity crosses
ethnic lines as people, whether Hakka, Hoklo, Mainland
Chinese, or Austronesian, increasingly see their destiny tied
to the island where they have spent their lives.

Importance of Identity in Domestic Politics Declining
-------------- --------------


9. (C) Politically, the growing Taiwanese identity has
benefited the DPP over the KMT. National identity --
Taiwanese vs. Mainlander -- has been the defining difference
between DPP and KMT. By 2000, identity had become so
important in Taiwan politics, Prof. Hsu argued, that it was
largely responsible for the KMT-to-DPP regime change. Four
years later, despite the lackluster economic performance of
the DPP government, President Chen was reelected with an
additional 1.5 million votes. Hsu attributed this to
Taiwanese identification that associated with the DPP rather
than with the KMT.


10. (C) Identity politics has even entered the KMT, Prof.
Hsu explained, with some members urging the party be renamed
"Taiwan KMT" to align with the emerging Taiwanese national
identity. Other KMT leaders, however, rejoin that no matter
how hard it tries, the KMT will never appear as Taiwanese as
the DPP and push a strategy of aligning with China and
portraying the KMT as the party that can open communication
between China and Taiwan and promote economic ties with
China. National Taiwan University's pro-Blue Prof. Philip
Yang, however, argued that both parties now have a
Taiwanese-centered identity and that the difference between
KMT and DPP is no longer Mainland Chinese vs. Taiwanese
identity but &status quo Taiwanese8 vs. &native
Taiwanese.8 All of the above analysts expect identity to
decline in the future as a factor in domestic politics.

&Identity8 Does Not Equal &Independence8
--------------


11. (C) Growing Taiwan identity has not translated into
growing support for Taiwan independence, however. Rather,
there has been a consistent and very high level of support
for continuing the cross-Strait status quo. A recent
Chengchih University poll commissioned by the Mainland
Affairs Council (MAC) showed 86 percent of respondents
support the status quo compared to 5 percent for &immediate
independence8 and 1 percent for &immediate unification."
Even on the question of an ultimate resolution -- eventual
unification or eventual independence -- the island is not
deeply split. Of the 60 percent who support continuation of
the status quo in a TVBS poll, 37 percent support "status quo
now/decision later8 and 23 percent support "status quo
indefinitely,8 only 14 percent support "status quo
now/independence later8 and 12 percent support &status quo
now/unification later.8 DPP Youth Affairs Director Tseng
Wen-Sheng told AIT that young people are particularly
concerned with the possibility of war because they will be
the ones who have to fight it. A March 2005 Chinese Culture
University poll of university students found only 35 percent
of university students willing to defend the island if the
Mainland China attacked, compared to 65 percent who would not
be willing to defend Taiwan.


12. (C) Taiwan identity has been effectively decoupled from
the question of unification vs. independence. Identifying
with Taiwan &is a different issue8 from supporting Taiwan
independence," Prof. Hsu explained, because the people of
Taiwan fully realize that declaring independence would have
an exorbitant cost. A recent "Business Weekly" opinion poll
found 58 percent of respondents believe a declaration of
Taiwan independence probably or definitely would cause war
with China compared with 21 percent who believed it probably
or definitely would not.


13. (C) Both Hsu and Chen stressed that Taiwan views on
cross-Strait relations are directly affected by the U.S.
position on Taiwan independence. Since the U.S. has made it
clear that it does not support Taiwan independence, many
Taiwanese realize that a declaration of independence would
probably cause a cross-Strait war without U.S. support that
would be catastrophic for Taiwan because 59 percent of Taiwan
people believe Taiwan does not have the capability to resist
compared to 27 percent who believe it does. The cost-of-war
realization is one reason that most of those who consider
themselves &only Taiwanese8 do not support independence.
The DPP's Tseng Wen-Sheng, however, argues that, while Taiwan
people increasingly identify with Taiwan over Mainland China,
this does not necessarily mean they will never support
unification. If Mainland China,s political situation
changes, he said, it is quite possible that a large number of
Taiwanese would support reunification.

Comment: Time Will Tell
--------------


14. (C) Taiwan society and politics have been in such a
state of flux over the past fifteen years that "time" itself
has become a point of controversy in Taiwan. If Taiwan can
maintain the status quo supported by the overwhelming
majority of Taiwan people, the question goes, will time be on
the side of Taiwan or on the side of Mainland China?
Pro-independence "Greens" fear time will gradually and
inevitably pull Taiwan into the PRC economic vortex,
gradually ending its separateness. Pro-unification "Blues,"
on the other hand, see time on Taiwan's side, for time is
irrevocably changing and will eventually democratize Mainland
China, which will, in turn, completely alter the cross-Strait
equation. Either way, Taiwan identity will likely continue
growing among the island's population, but this will probably
continue to be an identity not tied to the more pragmatic
issue of independence.

(Prepared by POL Intern Angela S. Wu.)

PAAL